1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to guards for the blades of cutting and similar articles, and in particular to slicing machine cleaning guards.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is necessary with sharp tools or machines with sharp cutting edges to protect the user not only when the machine is in operation, but when the machine is being stored or cleaned. Of course the blade is kept as sharp as possible for effective slicing. The blade and blade area must also be accessible, either for use in cutting or for access during cleaning. To protect operators, blade guards and the like have been utilized which cover the cutting edge of tools and machine blades. An example of a simple guard is the type found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,517,649 to Frechtmann, which discloses a blade cover for a hand held carving knife. The guard is a rod with a slot into which the knife blade fits. U.S. Pat. No. 2,954,118 to Anderson shows a guard to be placed over a band-saw blade. The edges of a channel-shaped guard are forced apart and the blade is inserted between them. Both of these blade covers are intended to be used when the saws or knives are being stored or transported.
There are also blade guards available for the toothed cutting blades of chain saws, and the like, all intended to protect the user and/or the area in which the saw is placed when the saw is off and not being used. Most of these provide a channel-like guard to be hand manipulated over the blade itself. Because of the nature of chain saws, the guards are simple, elongated, channeled strips which are simply manually pushed over the teeth edge after use. Representative of these blade guards are U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,250 to Kephart, Jr. and U.S. Pat. No. 3,129,731 to Tyrrell. A similar guard for the chain of a chain saW is disclosed by Shean in U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,460.
There are also guards for rotary blades for table saws and the like which may be placed over the stored blades and also kept on when the blades are in place until time of use. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,918,165 to Paulick, Jr. a cutter guard is disclosed which has a split spring steel band for opening a circular protective structure made from a plurality of individual "shoes" to enclose edges of a cutter, the number of shoes varying according to the circumference of the cutter. Rotary disk blades are of that type often removed if it is necessary to clean the saw or other machine, which is done only infrequently.
Meat and cheese slicers having a sharpened disc blade are in common use. These slicers are razor sharp and they create unique cleaning problems. Food slicers must be cleaned frequently, sometimes after each use for purposes of hygiene and also to avoid transferring the flavor of one sliced food into slices of the next. The slicers are common in delicatessens for slicing cold cuts. The circular disk blade of a meat slicing machine of this type is often shielded against inadvertently cutting a user's fingers during use by a stationary guard on the slicing machine itself. A user is protected during a slicing operation i.e he properly uses the guard and the moving table supporting the meat to be sliced. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,941 to Lorenz, a blade cover plate is interlocked to prevent operation of the blade unless the protective plate is in position.
Known stationary guards prevent access to the blade over relatively large areas. Accordingly, during cleaning, stationary guards must be removed. There is no alternative which will provide access to the blade and to those portions of the slicer machine obscured by the stationary blade guard. The user may feel secure in cleaning a slicer when the power is off, but it is just this time when many users become distracted and receive serious cuts. To avoid inadvertent cuts during cleaning, additional blade guards have been devised which fit over the blade edge during cleaning only. Among these are those disclosed in U.S. Pat No. 4,186,634 to Akczinski, Sr. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,246,818 to McGraw, Jr. which both provide circular covers with peripheral flanges to cover the blade edge. They both include center mounts for attaching the circular cover to the blade and cover an entire back side of the blade as well as the blade edge. When using such guards, the covered side of the blade cannot be cleaned.
Blades of various descriptions have been placed in temporary packages for transport, the packages having means disposed over the edge of the blade which are not easily cut through. Typically such covers resemble envelopes or flattened tubes that enclose all around the blade. In connection with the circular blades that are used on deli-type slicers, an envelope enclosure precludes mounting of the blade and therefore prevents use of the same cover for protection during transport as well as protection during cleaning of the installed blade. Moreover, the typical blade cover is relatively loose, there being no obvious need to avoid the clearances which allow relative motion of the blade and its packaging.
None of the aforesaid slicer blade guards employs a continuous channel-like guard which covers only the blade edge. One might anticipate problems with attaching a structure similar to the linear blade guard that fits only on the cutting edge, in particular that more cuts would be caused than avoided if users were required to hand manipulate a cover onto a slicer blade in the area of the razor sharp edge. Therefore it may not be surprising that the prior art lacks a circular channel guard for a disc blade, and in particular a circular channel guard which can be placed on the blade in an enlarged position and tightened by shortening its circumference once in place. A bail and clip for shortening a circular structure, such as used on tape reel covers or on spring-form cake pans, has likewise not been employed in the field of blade guards. Heretofore there has been no rotary slicer blade guard which is effective to cover only the blade edge of a slicer and leave the surfaces of the blade and surrounding slicer area uncovered for complete cleaning of a meat slicing machine. Nor has there been a blade guard which employs a bail-clip arrangement on a loop guard which can eliminate the need to manually press the guard over the blade edge and to provide a tightly fitting guard which will not slip off the blade.